About Me

After an unimpressive schooling, I started work in London to train as a legal executive. In less than a year I jumped ship and embarked on a mixture of electrical retail and then press photography with a couple of seasons as Senior River Leader for the ubiquitous PGL Holidays company. In my mid-twenties I found a career in Social Services at West Sussex’s Observation & Assessment centre & Secure Unit. Where I also set up a darkroom!

From my early teens, I had started kayaking in Switzerland, then Surrey and the UK south coast with Chichester Canoe Club. So, with my baptism in Social Services at the hard face, I introduced outdoor pursuits, qualified as a swimming teacher, mountain leader, climbing instructor, inland canoe senior instructor, sea and open canoe instructor, cave leader, archery teacher and counsellor. And learnt a lot about disregulated staff and children. I also competed in slalom competition and later qualified as a slalom trainer.

In my early thirties I accidentally (?!) set up a tiny family business, Outdoor Activity Training which started with Sea Survival courses and kayak instruction but quickly flourished and also traded as Canoestore, providing retail, hire and instruction from a showroom at Emsworth, Hampshire at the back of Chichester Harbour. With sales to France and in Spain where we also led river groups in the Avalon and Odessa mountain regions, based at Huesca and Torla. I simultaneously worked for Hampshire Children’s Services at Glen House. The business closed when my wife, Carol, and our book-keeper friend Pearl were both killed by a drunk driver. After a brief period of leave, I continued at Glen House and qualified as a social work practice teacher and then a stint at Southampton community teams. I began to receive requests to work in joint operations with the police, especially child abuse network investigations.

On re-marrying, I moved to Devon with my second wife, her daughter and our baby son, Sam. I provided safe housing for child victim witnesses in ongoing investigations and prosecutions whilst I was studying and after I qualified in Child Forensic Psychology & Law at Portsmouth University.  In Plymouth I worked in a similar role with Intervention, Community and Care Leavers teams and also Devon Youth Offending Service. I made myself useful with Devon Outdoor Education as a climbing, archery, caving, team-building and canoeing instructor, often selected to lead residential groups from social work and health settings.

I better slot in the ‘Sweden’ years, near Sodertalje and Are with sailing, kayaking and skiing respectively, including teaching Eskimo rolls to the Swedish! And working in Guernsey for Foster Care Associates; some time in Malta, kayaking and sailing. And regular time in Spain with my very good friends Seagull and Concha. Sam and I would detour to see them before and after skiing!

In my twenties I bought and rebuilt a plywood Silhouette 17’ sailboat. Then built a Leisure 23SL from mouldings. Next was a Snapdragon 24 fin keeler which I sailed to Brittany and berthed her near La Roche Bernard for 5 years. Replaced by my current yacht, a Moody 36, until 2022 in the Solent, now in Weymouth.

And, lastly, my swansong to date was as an intervention worker (see articles – other) for an educational subcontracted CIC, ‘On Track Education’ at their Devon base. I reviewed all their national policies, working in conjunction with the policy non-executive director, and re-wrote their driving policy. And no surprise that I introduced and ran climbing, sailing, kayaking, swimming and carpentry activities and certification schemes whilst working with some of the most disadvantaged, angry, unregulated children and young people that I have ever had the honour to mentor, mostly in a bid to prepare them for re-entry into group education. Let alone, occasionally to mainstream schools. Every single one of them deserved a far better deal in life. And, of course, my training in child safeguarding came to the fore and further honed my understanding of the behavioural sciences, causation, effect and solutions. And again, back to the field of changing minds and hearts, not of just the children but of the entire systems that had failed to prevent their isolation and referral to us. Changing adult minds and behaviours is often a harder task than changing children’s behaviours.